Tom Cole: war, russia is becoming more resurgeant and aggressive and china is rapidly increasing its aggressiveness. for these reasons i rise to oppose this conference report. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman's time has expired. the gentleman from wisconsin continues to reserve his time. t mr. lewis: mr. speaker, could i please check and see how much timehere is on each side?

Tom Cole: the speakepro tempore: the gentleman from california has 17 1/2 minutes remaining. and the gentleman from wisconsin has remaing. the gentleman from california. mr. lewis: mr. speaker, i yield three minutes to tom cole, of the fabulous new members on our side of the appropriations committee.

Tom Cole: the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman from oklahoma is recognized for three minutes. mr. cole: i thank the gentleman for yielding and thank him for his generous praise. mr. speaker, i rise today in opposition to this conference report, and i do that with a heavy heart, quite frankly. when this measure was initially before us i supported it enthusiastically. and in my remarks i praised the president. i thought he made a tough

Tom Cole: decision and deserved bipartisan support. i praised the majority because they had brought us, i think, a very good and finally crafted bill. and frankly, i was proud of the minority because we stepped up unconditionally, supported the president, provided the votes that he needed to win and make a difference, to have not just a bipartisan majority of th republican votes that put us in

Tom Cole: the majority. i felt like we dealt with the president and the administration in good faith. frankly, i don't think since that point that faith has been reciprocated. over the course of the process, as this legislation has moved through, i.m.f. funding has been added. it scores at $5 but it's considerable a greater amount of money that will be deployed.

Tom Cole: we've had the issues of photos of detainees. there's been no effort to gotiate with our side of the aisle that did have the votes needed to pass the original bill without condition. and frankly it's almost as if there was an assumption on the other side that we would either roll over or blackmailed or

Tom Cole: bullied in supporting the bill simply because of the military funding in it. and i wonder whether or not in retrospect it was worth losing, literally, dozens and dozens of republicans that were prepared to support this bill in a bipartisan fashion in ordeto add these other measures, which could have frankly been brought to the floor on their own. so i am forced to urge the

Tom Cole: rejection of this conference report. i would hope that we could restore the military funding that was taken out. i would hope that we could strip the unrelated i.m.f. funding. and i would hope we could practice once again the bipartisanship that led to such an overwhelming success in the original bill. and if we go back to that